DECIPHERING ISLAM'S MULTIPLE VOICES: INTELLECTUAL LUXURY OR STRATEGIC NECESSITY?

Middle East Policy, Fall 2005 by Ayoob, Mohammed

The question "Who Speaks for Islam?" has become of fundamental importance to the West in light of the terrorist attacks of 9/11 as well as the subsequent violence in parts of the Muslim world, most notably in Iraq, ostensibly undertaken in the name of Islam. This sequence of events has left the distinct impression in many quarters that such attacks presage a clash of civilizations between "Islam " and the "West." The clash of civilizations thesis in its latest incarnation, inspired by Princeton historian Bernard Lewis1 and most vividly presented by Harvard political scientist Samuel Huntington,2 in fact predates the events of 9/11. However, the terrorist attacks on New York and Washington and subsequent events have given the thesis much greater credibility among the Western public than had been the case earlier. Predicated upon an essentialist interpretation of Islam, the thesis has created a monolithic impression of Islam and Muslims that conceals the enormous diversity not only among Muslim opinion, in general, but even among those groups characterized as fundamentalists or Islamists.3 In fact, as Michael Doran has argued, the United States has in part become the target of ire on the part of certain Islamists because it has interposed itself in what is in substantial measure an intra-lslamic battle over political ideas and strategies for political action.4

The major impact of this essentialist and monolithic interpretation of Islam on Western perceptions is not merely to paint all Muslims with the same black brush but also to accord the most extremist and violent elements in the Muslim world the position of authentic spokespersons for Islam. The latter assessment is based on the mere fact that these elements are able to quote selectively from the Quran and the traditions of the Prophet, and stretch the meanings of such quotes through very creative interpretations, to justify killing civilians.5 Nothing could be farther from the truth. Just as there is no Islamic monolith, currently there is no single individual, group or institution that can rightfully claim to speak for Muslims, let alone on behalf of Islam. As Robert Hefner has pointed out, today "most Muslim societies are marked by deep disagreements over just who is qualified to speak as a religious authority and over just how seriously ordinary Muslims should take the pronouncements of individual scholars."6

However, this is not a new quandary for most Muslims. The question "Who Speaks for Islam?" has historically been difficult to answer. Islam has neither a pope nor a clearly delineated religious hierarchy. While a loose hierarchical tradition does exist among the Shia clergy, even in Shia Islam, which is the minority branch, there is currently no single individual or organization that can authoritatively decide theological issues. An attempt was made in the middle of the nineteenth century in Iran to establish a single source of religious authority in Shia Islam with the title marja-i-taqlid, meaning the source of imitation.7 However, this system broke previously down after the death of Ayatollah Burujerdi in 1961. Since then several leading religious figures have enjoyed the prerogative to issue edicts or rulings that become binding but only on their respective followers, that is on those who have chosen these particular figures as sources of emulation.8

These rulings are not considered binding on the followers of other religious figures of equal status. It was, therefore, no surprise that Ayatollah Khomeini's arrogation of the right to speak on behalf of all of Iranian Shia Islam was greatly resented by many leading ayatollahs, several of whom outranked him in the religious hierarchy before the Iranian Revolution. These divisions of opinion have been very important in the political realm dividing those endorsing politically quietist interpretations oflslamic injunctions from those advocating politically activist interpretations of religious doctrines and the various shades of opinion in between. While Ayatollah Burujerdi advocated a quietist line, Ayatollah Khomeini expounded an activist position. Ayatollah Sistani, currently the de facto marja of the Iraqi Shias, falls somewhere in between.9

The problem of locating religious authority becomes much more acute in the majority Sunni tradition where multiple religious voices have historically been the rule rather than the exception. Traditionally, numerous senior ulama, the learned in the law, have exercised the right to issue religious rulings based on meticulous research of the sources of Islamic law, including the context in which particular revelations occurred, and of accumulated precedents. It is not uncommon to find edicts issued by different fuquha (jurists, from the singular faqih) to be at variance with each other, depending upon the different weight they have accorded to sources from which they have sought guidance and on the different contexts within which they have issued rulings.

The tradition legitimizing multiple sources of religious authority was institutionalized in the ninth century CE with the consolidation of five major schools of Islamic jurisprudence, four among the predominant Sunnis and one among the Shia. Followers of the major schools were expected to accord equal status and respect to each one of them and consider the decisions of their representative ulama as binding upon the followers of each respective school. This policy of live and let live produced several benefits over the centuries. It helped preclude the establishment of a single orthodoxy that in alliance with the state could suppress all dissenting tendencies and oppress their followers as happened in Christian Europe during the medieval and early modern periods. Wars of religion and persecution of "heretical" sects were, therefore, infrequent in the classical age of Islam again in contrast with Christendom.